Dental care needs difficult for mentally disabled in Hong Kong

For most people the wait for a dentist's appointment to extract a painful tooth would probably take a matter of days, but for mentally disabled Hongkongers, it could take up to three years because of the lack of services to meet their needs.

Often the mentally disabled cannot express themselves, leaving their discomfort unknown to the people that take care of them. By the time the problem is discovered, it is often too late to save the affected teeth, says a dental surgeon.

"Mentally disabled people's oral problems are more serious than for the rest of the population," said Dr Au An-nie, who was part of a team of 80 medical staff - dentists, doctors, nurses and anaesthetists - which visited a home for people with mental disabilities in July as part of an outreach programme.

"Because my son cannot verbally express his pain, he would throw tantrums, beat his head or use his knee to slam into his face," said William Cheng Sui-keung, whose 29-year-old son, Yik-shau, has serious mental disabilities, is blind and does not talk.

The father said he saw an obvious improvement in his son's behaviour after Yik-shau had his problematic tooth extracted in the dental outreach programme.

Au said that about 70 per cent of the patients examined during the programme had periodontal disease, which affects the gums and bones that surround and support the teeth. Half of them had not visited a dentist for more than three years, she said.